by boodles » 29 Jul 2012, 19:02
I think I overheard my doctor or the nurse or the anestiologist also call the LIS, (if that's what I had) a fissurectomy. But I don't think it's the same thing. Maybe it's all the same in their minds?
I had a similar problem. The doctor told me he would do a posterior lateral sphincterotomy, so I tried researching that but all I could find was the LIS vs. the open posterior sphincterotomy, the latter sounding closer to what he told me. I didn't want that latter "open" surgery as there is more chance for hemorrhage, slower to heal, and they divide the sphincter through the fissure wound.
So when we asked him to please clarify which type he would do, he said, no, he wouldn't be going throught the fissure, but cutting on the opposite side so the fissure could heal. I went ahead and had him do it, as it sounded like the LIS. But he never told me the exact name of the surgery he did, and he got kinda huffy saying as a doctor he would do what was best for me. (And it was either he do it here, or travel and stay in a hotel somewhere else, way more trouble!) Other than that he was really nice and explained things pretty well, and most of what he said seems to be what I read online.
It's really tough sometimes because we try to do our homework and ask questions but doctors feel disrespected or in this case, that I was trying to tell him what to do.
I've experienced this a lot though, my main doctor(different guy) here even commented "I don't know why people go to private doctors when they always end up back here and we treat them!" That was after I was trying to get his second opinion for the surgery with the other doctor. And this doctor, after a year with pain and bleeding, kept telling me to take fiber and put hydrocortisone cream on the hemorrhoid. He never would have helped me by telling me about the LIS, and it turned out, I didn't even have a hemorrhoid, it was a skin tag. I think I'm going to change my main doctor, because whatever my problem is, he thinks I'm "too young". So it's my fault, or I'm making it all up. Yep, going to try to change main doctor.